The First Rule of Fight Club
Well, as I am writing this entry today, obviously we made it out alive … so far. Our plan went pretty much as we had discussed, with the exception of Gar going rouge and sending little messages to “the Wrathbourne!” I didn’t want to leave him, but he insisted he’d be all right. The rest of us donned the drow guards’ clothes—they were absurdly large on Praxis—and left in two teams for the raft on the far left of the icy shore. Praxis and I went with my two hobbie friends while Varis headed up the other group of crewmen. We tried to appear innocuous and made our trek through the snow as quiet as possible. The crunch sounded deafening to my ears, and I couldn’t help but steal glances toward the encampment, worried that Gar would get himself into trouble. For half our journey to the dinghy, Gar just sent his little, woodland messengers to the Wrathbourne’s tent. One by one, they would reemerge, seemingly unharmed to return to Gar’s safe perch several yards away. Praxis had to urge me on toward the dinghy, though, when Gar himself strode confidently into the enemy camp, disappearing into the largest tent. “We have to go rescue him!” I whispered to Praxis. “Eh, I’m sure he’s fine,” was his unconvincing response. By this time, the snow had given away to slippery ice, and I had to focus more on my footing than the tent Gar had vanished inside. Our pace had slowed, and we were worried someone would catch onto who we were and what we were attempting. Sure enough, the Wrathbourne—I was beginning to hate that name—emerged from her tent and delivered orders in a harsh language to the guards stationed to each side. We saw a group of drow leave the encampment in a rush, hurrying toward a dinghy of their own. They locked eyes with us, and the race to the water was on! We were now scrambling, slipping and sliding on the ice and making no attempts at stealth to try to beat the drow into the water. Our crew piled into the small boat and Varis pushed it off the shore, hopping in with drenched boots. We immediately grasped the oars and got to work rowing like our lives depended on it—because they very well did. Just as we pushed off, things started to go south for poor Gar. Praxis had to hold me back before I threw myself off the boat to go help him. Gar and Wrath were outside the tent now, and all her evil henchmen formed a ring around poor Gar. I watched helplessly as one of the men from the circle stepped forward and turned into a wolf! The wolf lowered his head and bared his teeth at Gar. My friend shifted into a creature himself, and the two went toe to toe—''err'', paw to paw. I was relieved to see that Gar was the first to land a blow. The wolf yelped in pain and crumpled to the ground. I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see what was going on. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the drow in the dinghy, who were now motioning to the galleon. Lights went up on the deck as ballista and cannons were readied to fire. They were aiming for us! We were told to halt and return to shore or risk bombardment if we didn’t cooperate. It looked as though our own plan was used against us. So much for trying to get the upper-hand. Having no other option, we went back to shore and were led to where Gar was finishing his fight with a drow shrouded in magickal darkness. “Hi, guys!” He seemed his usual, cheery self as he shifted back into his normal form, not at all concerned with the fact that we were surrounded by well-organized, hostile people! “Um, is everything okay?” I hesitantly asked after approaching my nonchalant friend. The Wrath lady, a slender woman in robes with a hood pulled up over her head, leaned in to whisper something in Gar’s ear. I caught a glimpse of her dusky skin and surprisingly pretty, elven features hidden under her hood. The two beefy guards who flanked the Wrath’s tent approached us, bending down on all fours as their skin rippled and changed. The grotesque sound of sinew and bone reforming could be heard as the guards changed into the same dog-like creature Gar had already fought. Maybe it was just that we were much closer, but these wolves looked much bigger than the first. Even more concerning, was that the Wrath lady herself decided to join the fray, with dark magical energy coalescing in her hands. We sprang into action, trying to defend ourselves from our three attackers, hoping that no one else joined the fight. I did what I usually do and set about trying to heal my friends when they got injured and help them by getting an extra attack when I could. Praxis got hit by some magical energy from her and wavered on his feet. I called his name to see what was wrong, and he turned around and shot me! Shot … me! Rather than heal my friends, I had to heal myself and get far away from Praxis in case he decided to try to shoot me again. Thank goodness it took a while to reload that gun of his. During the fight, things were pretty straight forward with the wolves. They would try to claw and bite you, just as normal wolves did. But the “''Whatever''” girl was different. My friends would momentarily disappear and reappear looking confused, and she was somehow drawing energy from our magick items, using it to heal herself. Once, when I was getting pretty ragged from taking a few hits, she drew energy from me! I made a note from that point on to put some distance between her and I. Varis was oddly absent. He had disappeared into her tent and hadn’t come back out. I was too afraid to go in there and check on him, but it sure wasn’t like him to miss out on all the action … and especially all the glory. Praxis seemed to be under her spell more and more and was either rooted in place or randomly shooting at people. It was up to Gar and I to take on the new people that stepped forward after the previous ones fell. Even as more stepped forward, it didn’t seem like the circle was getting any smaller. I knew we couldn’t possibly fight everyone. If so we would surely die. “Um, Miss Wrathbourne. How long are we going to continue this?” “Until it’s over,” she replied in a flat tone, completely unperturbed by our attacks. Well thanks ''for clearing that up, ''I couldn’t help thinking.'' Finally, Varis came out of the tent, looking rather confused but fresh and ready to enter the fight. I put up an aura that hurt any enemy that got close to me and one that made my friends hit harder. At this point, we needed to pull out all the stops to either prove our worth to this girl, or die trying. When it seemed like we couldn’t possibly go on any longer, it was finally over. With a simple command, the remaining combatants left the circle and went back to their normal duties. The Wrathbourne asked us to enter her tent. Seeing no other option at that point, we complied. “You have proven yourselves, and I have a task for you.” I was full of questions, but Gar was insistent on doing all the talking. He apparently had already struck up some deal with the woman, and now it was our turn to pay up on it. Well, ''I would have liked to have some insider knowledge on that plan ahead of time, Gar. Thanks for the heads up! “You will journey to Handa’ksh to retrieve a woman.” Gar immediately agreed, no questions asked. He eyed me and shook his head when I started to raise my hand to speak. “Is this woman a slave?” I asked, despite Gar’s eye roll. “Yes.” I was waiting on some elaboration, maybe a few more details about who the woman was or where she was kept, but this lady wasn’t much for conversation. “You will leave tomorrow morning. Bring her to me, and you will be free to take your crew and your ship … and leave.” I felt my eyebrows knit together and opened my mouth to ask for more information, but again Gar shook his head, pleading with his eyes for me to be quiet. I didn’t understand what the harm was in asking some simple questions. We would get more information, and there would be a lot less confusion in general. On the other hand, I had to trust Gar on this. He so seldom took the lead in things, and I wanted to give him some credit. He had already had some type of exchange with this woman from his little messages, so maybe he knew more than we did. When we were alone, I would ask him. For now, I guess I’d just shut up. ~Zaly For next week's session summary, click here.